[MITgcm-support] Calculating sea ice export

[Madison Shankle]

Hi everyone,

Back with another sea ice question (well, two), specifically about calculating sea ice export. Apologies again for not being able to figure this out from the documentation.

I'm currently calculating ice export as sea ice load (given in kg/m2) * meridional velocity in the surface ocean layer (m/s) * dx across the grid cell (m). This should give kg/s of ice exported out of the northern face of any grid cell (but I believe I'm wrong about the ocean surface velocity - see question 2).

My two questions are:

(1) Does the "sIceLoad" diagnostic ("sea-ice loading (in Mass of ice+snow / area unit)") need to be multiplied by "SIarea" ("fractional ice-covered area [0-1]") in every grid cell, or does it already take this into account?

(2) I'm realizing that it's perhaps incorrect to use the ocean model's meridional velocity in the surface layer in this calculation, since for example wind can move sea ice too. Should I instead be using the "SIvice" diagnostic ("SEAICE merid. ice velocity, >0 form South to North")? Does this give the net movement of sea ice from both winds and ocean currents?

Thank you very much,
Maddie Shankle





[cid:bc568b12-3870-46c4-8c34-fe642d0f0a2c]

Maddie Shankle
PhD Student, Paleoceanography
School of Earth & Environmental Sciences

Bute Building, Queen's Terrace
St Andrews, Fife, KY16 9TS

mgs23 at st-andrews.ac.uk<mailto:mgs23 at st-andrews.ac.uk>
www.st-andrews.ac.uk<http://www.st-andrews.ac.uk/>


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